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Support S. 22 the Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006

During the week of May 1, the U.S. Senate will consider the Medical Care Access Protection Act of 2006, S. 22. The bill is sponsored by Senator John Ensign (R-NV) and is a comprehensive medical liability reform bill that would bring an end to the medical liability crisis in the United States. The AUA is asking members to contact their senators and ask that they support this very important bill.

The intent behind the Medical Care Access Protection Act is to improve access to health care by implementing reasonable, comprehensive, and effective health care liability reforms designed to:

• Reduce the incidence of costly “defensive medicine”
• Ensure that persons with meritorious health-care injury claims receive fair and adequate compensation, including reasonable non-economic damages
• Improve the fairness and cost-effectiveness of our current health-care liability system as it relates to dispute resolution and compensation by reducing uncertainty in the amount of compensation provided to injured individuals.

The most important feature of S.22 is its proposed adoption of a new damage cap model for non-economic damages. Based on the highly successful Texas “stacked-cap” approach – which has reduced premiums by the largest carrier in the state by 22 percent – a health-care provider’s civil liability for non-economic damages is $250,000. A health-care institution’s (hospital, nursing home, etc.) civil liability for non-economic damages is also capped at $250,000 and in situations where a final judgment is rendered against more than one health-care institution, the limit of civil liability for non-economic damages is limited to $250,000 for each institution or $500,000 for all institutions. The bill also preserve states’ rights by keeping state medical liability statutes in place and by allowing future state laws to supersede federal limits on damages.

Please take action today by contacting your senator, regardless of past votes on medical liability and tell them to support Senate Bill 22.

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